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I'm going on record here: I am horrified that this country elected Donald Trump. To me, racism and sexism and xenophobia are deal breakers. It's like saying, "My boyfriend is really great, except he hits me." Not hitting you is the bare minimum. Not being overtly racist and sexist and xenophobic is the bare minimum in a president. I am horrified that overt racism and sexism and xenophobia are not deal breakers for 47.5% of this country.

We are all racist and sexist and xenophobic to some degree. We were all raised in a society that told us that black people are a little scary and don't have good intentions, that told us that women are bitchy if they stand up for themselves, that told us that people from somewhere else have weird, unpleasant ways that would bother us if we had to experience them.

But we have to fight that. We have to fight it. If we don't fight it, we are part of the problem. When we vote for someone like Trump, we are saying, "Racism isn't important to me. I don't feel the effects of it in my life, and I don't care that other people do." 

So don't tell me that people who voted for Trump aren't racist. Don't tell me that they aren't sexist. Don't tell me that they aren't xenophobic. They accept these things in other people. They don't speak up against them. They don't, above all, reject them in their leaders. 

I hope, I really do, that our institutions and law are strong enough to prevent Trump from becoming Hitler. I hope that social pressure is enough to keep Trump from becoming Hitler. But there is a very real chance that this is Germany in 1934, and we just elected Hitler. 

I grew up in the Midwest. I understand why people vote Republican. I will never understand why anyone voted for Trump, especially not anyone who claims to be a Christian.

Because I will tell you this: Jesus would have utterly rejected a man who stereotypes black people and calls them "the blacks" to other them. Jesus would have utterly rejected a man who treats women like objects and grabs them without their consent. Jesus would have utterly rejected a man who threatens to make Muslims carry ID cards (sound familiar? see Germany in the 1930s, Rwanda in the 1990s, just prior to the start of genocide in both countries). 

If you voted for Trump and are reading this saying, "But, the Supreme Court! He didn't mean those things!" let me tell you this: the man would say anything to get elected. He would tell you anything about the Supreme Court and Obamacare and immigration and how he's going to bring jobs back. But you have literally no idea what he will actually do. He changed his story every time he blinked. He denied statements that he made days earlier, that were on tape. He will do what is best for himself, not for you. He cares about no one but himself. 

And more: he pandered to the racism and sexism and xenophobia in some (hopefully small) segments of our country. He gambled on the fact that most people wouldn't stand up against that. And he won. Most people didn't stand up against that. They accepted it. If this is 1934 Germany, 47.5% of the country voted for Hitler. If this is 1964 Alabama, 47.5% of the country voted for the white supremacist governor. Trump lost the popular vote, but he won enough people in my home state and others like it that he won the electoral college. 

I don't know what my Oma would do if she were here, but I know this: she stood up against Hitler when the Netherlands was occupied by the Nazis. I can't imagine what she would have thought when her party elected a man who read Hitler's speeches for inspiration. She couldn't even stand the sound of German being spoken. I am so glad that she never knew that some of her children and grandchildren voted for a man who used Hitler's strategies to get elected, who talks about minorities  as if they are the source of white people's problems just like Hitler did, and who, I fear, may turn out to treat minorities the same way Hitler did. 

I worry now, speaking out about these things. I worry that I will have to stand in the gap and risk death to stand up to Trump. But I'm doing it, because it is the right thing to do, and because my Oma did no less.